Slaying Turns Winning Team’s Elation to Grief

By all rights, the Santa Monica College men’s basketball team should have been celebrating Sunday, not mourning.

After all, just two days before, it had captured its conference title and, with a 24-7 season record, was optimistically en route to the state championship tournament.

Instead, the stunned athletes gathered Sunday at their coach’s home for a wake of sorts, honoring teammate Davy Fortson, a 19-year-old star guard who was shot to death at a Santa Monica hamburger stand after the big game Friday night during an argument with gang members. Police have arrested a 16-year-old boy, a member of a tagging crew called “Insane Habits,” on suspicion of committing the crime.

Fortson “was the total opposite of what that person did to him,” said his friend and teammate Luke Davis. “It’s just not fair that he won’t get to see 21. . . .”

His friends and coaches suggest that the 6-foot-4-inch Fortson was an innocent victim of the turf battles between Latino and black gangs in Venice and Santa Monica. While Fortson had known gang members during his days at Dorsey High School, he recently moved from his family’s South-Central home to share a Santa Monica apartment--in part to keep away from those old acquaintances.

“I think the facts were that he was young and black and in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said Coach Marvin Menzies, who hosted the get-together Sunday in his Manhattan Beach back yard. “There’s a major war going on in Santa Monica that’s been kind of swept under the carpet, and it’s time somebody did something about it.”

A Santa Monica Police Department spokesman said Sunday that the shooting was being investigated. As for the possible gang war link, he commented: “I haven’t heard that’s anything involved with this.”

Just hours before his slaying, Fortson had scored 23 points against Glendale College, another leap toward his dream of playing for a big-name, Division I university next year and a pro team later on. Menzies said Fortson was a strong candidate to be voted Most Valuable Player of the Western States Conference Southern Division, in which the college plays. In recent months, Fortson seemed to be learning that the best way to attract recruiters was to be more of a team player, less of a showboat.

“A lot of kids dream of going pro, but very few have a remote chance,” Menzies said. “He was one of the few who had an actual chance of making the big time, just on the strength of the maturity level he attained in the last year and the fact that he was getting better and better.”

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The casual choice of hamburger stands after the Friday night game apparently cost the player his life. While many teammates had snacks at a nearby Jack in the Box, Fortson stopped at the Tommy’s Burgers in the 1900 block of Lincoln Boulevard with a cousin and two friends. Then members of the Latino gang arrived and, witnesses say, began to question Fortson about what “crew” he belonged to. Witnesses said Fortson kept denying that he was a gang member.

As his assailants continued to pester him, a fistfight broke out. Then the 16-year-old allegedly took out a handgun and shot Fortson once in the chest, police said. The basketball player scrambled outside and collapsed. He died at UCLA Medical Center.

Early Saturday morning, police arrested the alleged gunman at a girlfriend’s house in Santa Monica. He was being held at Juvenile Hall.

While Menzies barbecued chicken and ribs Sunday in his small patio, his players sat in the living room watching NBA games. Some shared anecdotes about Fortson and his big smile, while others seemed too shocked to talk.

John (Tank) Mundy, 18, who had played on basketball teams with Fortson since their days at Horace Mann Junior High School, said the dead teen “was like a big brother to me, somebody who was always trying to guide me in the right direction. He was the type of person who was sometimes selfish with the basketball, but he liked to give to other people.” Fortson had served as a volunteer assistant coach for a high school traveling all-star team called the L.A. Cavaliers.

College officials hope that the memory of Fortson will help another student-athlete afford the transfer to a four-year university. They have established a Davy Fortson Scholarship Fund and ask that donations be sent in care of the Athletic Department, Santa Monica College, 1900 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica 90405.

Meanwhile, Fortson’s family Sunday was making arrangements for his funeral, scheduled for 10 a.m. Friday at the Figueroa Church of Christ in South-Central.